The Familiar Four

This is the crux of all new businesses - you need to stand out with something original and exciting, but your audience needs something familiar to grasp onto. Your ideas need to set you apart yet be inclusive. Show us a “better way” of doing things without forcing us to abandon what we’ve grown comfortable with.

When businesses can’t find this middle ground, their failure isn’t so much in the product but in their communication around the product. The business fully understands the genius behind their actions, but all its audience hears is Greek.

The question stands: how do you bring forward an original idea without alienating audiences with your genius?

We’ll be discussing 3 things during this podcast:

1. A breakdown of the Modified Originality Scale
2. How Businesses Fail To Present Originality
3. How to Create An Original Brand

I strongly recommend you start by understanding your brand archetypal mix, and we have a FREE quiz for that.

You can join our BAMFam Community dedicated to aligning your brand. We have Free Alignment resources there as well.

Finally, if you find yourself in need of guidance with your brand alignment. We have our BAM Academy, and frameworks to help you with that. I would start with The Big BAM Process, this is the brand strategy framework we have led thousands of clients through and we have a self-guided option as well.

If you would like to be a guest on our podcast you can contact us.

Transcript

André Gagiano: 0:36

well, I'd like to welcome the 15th episode of our monthly podcast or as we like to call it, BAM Cast. And once again we're live within our Bamfam community. And if you joined us for this broadcast, thanks for being here. If you are watching us on a replay, be sure to watch the community live space, for upcoming events.

Joel Kelly - normal: 0:56

Yeah. So, we will be keeping the format of our discussion around brand related topics with myself, Joel, and my co-host, Andre. And we're gonna try to keep it to 20 minutes, but we've been having some technical difficulty with him over there in Portugal and he's got a storm coming on right now, so the weather is inclement, so the weather's gonna, is going to play an impact in our technology. We do apologize for that ahead of time. This month's topic is the familiar four, introducing new and old ideas.

André Gagiano: 1:29

This is the crux of all new businesses, but certainly I've experienced this severally. You need to stand out with something original and exciting, but your audience needs something familiar to grasp onto. Your ideas, need to set you apart, yet be inclusive. Show us a better way of doing things without forcing us to abandon what we've grown comfortable with. When businesses can't find this middle ground, their failure isn't so much in the product. In their communication around the product, the business fully understands the genius behind their actions, but it's audience just hears Greek. The question stands, how do you bring forward an original idea without alienating audiences with

Joel Kelly - normal: 2:11

your genius? Yeah. So before we deconstruct what this all means, let me tell you what BAM Cast is all about. BAM Cast is a monthly podcast dedicated to recalibrating your brand, audience, and message. All resources, support, and topics will be around brand recalibration to give you the confidence and clarity on the right path for your brand's vision. I am Joel Kelly, co-founder of BAM Align, BAM Academy, and the BAM

André Gagiano: 2:36

And I'm Andre Gagiano on the RAD Relationship Alignment Director here at BAM, and also the owner of Strike North branding company, which leverages the BAM frameworks and systems. We've spent 20 plus years recalibrating brands and educating business owners on how to communicate to those who are already looking for what they as a brand are uniquely offering. We want to teach you the lessons we've learned from our successes and failures to share the wisdom we've gained along the way.

Joel Kelly - normal: 3:03

Yeah, we didn't follow our passion. We followed the opportunity, which led to our passion, and that's really important because it wasn't just based on emotion. And if you wanna build a legacy and live the life you've always dreamed of, but just need a little guidance to get there. We're here to help

André Gagiano: 3:17

Everyone this month is the familiar four, introducing new and old ideas. We'll be discussing three things during this podcast, a breakdown of the modified originality scale, how businesses failed to present originality, and how to create an original brand. Let's move on to point number one, a breakdown of the modified originality scale. All right, so original, authentic, unique. The idea is simple. You don't wanna be a copy. You want to be the, origin point of the concept. If imitation is just a form of flattery, you deserve to be flatted. Marty Neumier laid out the originality scale years ago. Knowledge multiplied by imagination equals originality. Joel, can you please expand on this for us?

Joel Kelly - normal: 4:05

Yeah, sure. So, uh, knowledge, the totality of what is known and the body of acquired facts, information, and principles. Imagination is the creative ability or a creation of the act of mind. Originality is the state of being original or that novelty relating to the origin, the beginning and the first instance, which things are copied from, and we need to take the base of this equation, from knowledge to wisdom. If knowledge is facts, wisdom is the insight gain from the experiencing the facts in the real world. Insight is the ability to define the reasons behind specific situations. Now, to understand the. Nature of things. Insight breeds from intuition, and intuition develops from experience. All in all, they grant us wisdom. Wisdom is your body of knowledge tried and tested, and that's why I think that we call it the modified wisdom times imagination equals originality and authenticity.

André Gagiano: 5:15

Point number two, how businesses fail to present originality. imagine though that if an idea is too original, this might confuse an audience. What can you share with us from your experience of re calibrating brands? Joel?

Joel Kelly - normal: 5:30

Oh man. I've sat down the table with like thousands of people and visionaries with ideas and businesses and products and services that said they have like the greatest things since slice bread or that it's gonna change the world and whatnot. Some of them made perfect sense and would go on to earn loads of cash and, and make a difference with their brand. But a lot of the others ask'em to explain it again and again and see if there is something I was missing. There was just that disconnect in communication. they understood their idea and the different pace, but the problem is it made zero sense Yet in their head it was perfectly clear. And so that partly was the disconnect. There may only be a few inches between the brain and the tip of your tongue, but a lot of stuff can get mixed up along the way in that distance. Your new way of doing things and their new way of new doing things. like I said, may revolutionize the world, but only you can communicate your original ideas in the right way. And so when the idea is drastically different than what is already out there, it's hard for people to understand, much less accept it. And again, geniuses are always ahead of their time and early adopters of taking risks, but these people are on the fringes. They make up the minuscule percent of the population that needs your idea. And I think that's really important that we understand that you can have a great idea and all the different things, but if your audience isn't going to get it, that is the critical point for failure a lot in the businesses, or at least in my opinion, is just, they're just, they're not familiar with it in the way that we're communicating.

André Gagiano: 7:16

speaking about at some point history, every new idea would seem outlandish or on the fringe, things like in-home electricity, even the internet. So how do these ideas go from fringe ideas to public utilities?

Joel Kelly - normal: 7:32

I mean, so they started addressing the internal pain points to the non-users, we're experiencing Without electricity, you were illuminating your house with candles, and that sometimes resolved in a five alarm fires. As the internet made the publishing and the distribution of media faster and cheaper users, adopted devices and applications so that they could stay involved with the conversation. When you replace confusion with necessity, the resistance to your new idea falls away. And that's key. You've gotta have other people understand that they actually need your product. And that's a great understanding, for us to take away is, is the fact. It needs to be a necessity. It needs something that they need to, address the internal pain, which is that fear and that conflict and that struggle that's going inside'em, which is one of the reasons why they're engaging in the first place because they wanna solve a, a particular problem that they have inside. So, yeah.

André Gagiano: 8:33

So, um, we'll just jump to point number three. so how to create an original brand, right? Let's go back to wisdom multiplied by imagination equals originality. Yeah. What you've learned from your experience multiplied by connecting new concepts equals a new audience they can engage with.

Joel Kelly - normal: 8:51

Yeah. So yeah, let's go back to Marty New Neumier's Originality Scale. On the vertical access you have wisdom, and on the horizon, axis you have imagination. The very, basically, this breaks down into four quadrants, little wisdom times, little imagination, nothing new. You're a copycat. The audience will accept it. The idea, because they've already heard about it. Lots of wisdom, times little imagination. Your experience is applied to other verticals, industries, or ideas, or you try to adopt other ideas into your expertise. Little wisdom and loads of imagination times, loads of imagination you're coming up with concepts that are new to you, lots of what ifs and how abouts, but when you tell people about your new ideas, they usually respond to Oh, sort of like new to you, not to them. Lots of wisdom times, lots of imagination. Brand new to everyone. You fully understand the idea because it's rooted in your experience, but it requires a lot of imagination on your audience's part to be fully accepted. There's no reason these ideas couldn't work, but the electricity or the internet, you need to find in the messaging that makes your idea work for everyone else. And that's really key, right? So the problem is, is that we take things way too far. So even in BAM to kind of explain it, is we introduced, an idea. So we're talking about branding and we we're, we're a brand, strategy. Recalibration tool or resource or whatever we're a brand recalibration company. That's what we do, but we kind of fit in between, what people's idea or perception of branding, is based on. I, I would say that the industry, which led it in a different direction and based on what originally branding was. And so we're trying to bring it back to what it is, and we're kind of having to walk through little bit steps. And once we reintroduce something, we introduce something that they're familiar with, but we still challenge them and we push them to grow our audience. And then later on, maybe about 18 months, a year later, we will take that same concept and we'll push it again to challenge to get them where we need them to go. And again, that idea is because we exist, we're, we're kind of funny, so we don't actually, we don't do logos, we don't do websites or anything like that here at BAM, Strike North does, so if you want him go, go ask him, Andre. But what we do is we mainly focus on the strategy and the blueprint and outlining, that structure and what that is. So that you can fill in the blanks of having an effective, messaging and your audience is something that's gonna accept it. And then if you wanna work on the identity, the visual identity and stuff like that, you're, you're more than welcome to. But it's not something that we do. And so we kind of exist kind of in between a person who has a business and wants it to be a brand. And we talked about that last time, that your business is not necessarily a brand. because when you first start out, it has to do with the identity aspect of things, and then your identity starts becoming what it is later on as it's formed. And again, that's one of those, of those different, those new ideas or some of those things to challenge what is the status quo. Obviously in my archetype, I'm more on the outlaw side or whatever, so I'm more about challenging the status quo for progress, and so I want to introduce people to a better way. That will help the, the failure rate go down extensively. And if you understand this idea and go back to like if you have like a new revolutionary idea, go back to what is somewhat familiar with people and then help lead them along the way. Guide them. To your solution in a way and compare it to some of this is where it's at, and this is why this product is inferior, or this is why this service is inferior, or this is why this should be a better way, or why this narrative should be challenged and you need to give them something familiar. If you just introduce a new idea, which we did make the mistake in the very, very, very, very beginning, because there was nothing like it out there. it was really hard to kind of base it on, well, something familiar because it kind of stood out on its own. Over a period of time you've seen, Donald Miller come out with his story brand frameworks and some of those other people, come up with their own frameworks or whatever, and that has started moving it forwards that brand strategy has started to become a focus and really the crux of what is the success of a brand in a lot of ways. But a lot of people just would've jumped to logos and websites and different things. So at the time it just wasn't ready. And so that's like one of those things that we can, I can kind of point out from our own failure is that we didn't bring enough familiarity with BAM and the idea of BAM. And so, You know, and so it took probably a little bit longer than it should have in order to get the momentum that it has.

André Gagiano: 14:22

Joel leaning into what You've just said Important, there's two questions I'd like to ask you. One of them is there's a lot, spoken and written about what people think branding is. Two questions. First question is, how long does it typically take for a brand to become a brand? And secondly, could you in a few sentences explain the blueprint is that BAM helps you with, how long does it typically take for a brand

Joel Kelly - normal: 14:53

to become, oh, okay. Right. So let's answer that question. So how long does it take for a brand to typically from go from business to brand? Great question. So, as we talked about, the growth development stage, like using human development or whatever, your identity is starting to be formed in a business, uh, in about 18 months, you'll start seeing something. Uh, you can go it a little bit faster. Obviously time is not, a factor necessarily, but typically, uh, it's 18 months and then three to five years, you really start establishing who you are in the market. And it just takes that identity and trying things out and trying what working out for you to be authentic. The more you are authentic, obviously the faster it'll be. But most people try to copy other people's ideas or different things because they're trying to, Focus on a trend or, or something that's going on. And so it's really not their originality, it's really copying someone's ideas. And so yes, people are gonna accept it and it's called shirttail marketing, where you ride the shirttails of someone else's success. and it's effective for short bursts, but not long term strategy. So, yeah.

André Gagiano: 16:06

interesting, Joel. Um, a lot of things think brand just happens over that question. What would somebody can somebody expect by, taking in the BAM process?

Joel Kelly - normal: 16:17

I have no idea what you said, but something about taking in the BAM process. So I assume you want me to kind of touch on it a little bit, right? So, uh, the Big BAM Process. So let me kind of break it down a little bit of what it is and what it isn't. So it's not an easy button, it's not a golden buzzer. It's not anything, it's a lot of work. it's painful in all the right ways and necessary as far as for that growth and change. It challenges you, it challenges your perspective in different points of view. It gets you to focus on your audience and not you. A lot of brands are focused too much on their ego and what they think and what they want, and really it's about the collect of the audience in which they wanna attract. And so it really helps you to understand your audience and create messaging that's going to attract the right audience for you or your aligned audience, as we would call it. And so really the Big BAM process is about those micro adjustments, those recalibrations. It's not redoing it, it's not rebranding, it's not any of those type of things. It's really just about going through a process, a framework, that helps you outline the boundaries of what your brand should be, what it shouldn't be, how you're effective as the guide strategy for cash flow. And you're good, better, and best offer, and then the channels in which you should engage with evaluation the success and failures, you know, time to reflect and whatever, and all that to create your brand message. And so all those pieces come together in order to create that messaging, not a logo. Not an identity. Your messaging, which is the crux of your vision, it's the all-encompassing thing that what makes your brand you, it gives meaning to your brand, if you will. So branding is simply the identity the process of that, of creating your identity and your message of meaning, whatever that looks like. And so that's really what it is. Marketing is really the distribution of that message. Business development really is the operational side of things, and that's clearly how those lines should be defined. However, many people, I've not gone in that general direction. We kind of connect all those different pieces, together. but branding is really that, nucleus that, can kind of help things go that messaging where the audience accepts the idea, the operations is what runs things, and the marketing's distribution of that messaging. Very simple.

André Gagiano: 18:35

Yeah, thanks for that, Joel. That explains it. I mean, there's so much being written and spoken about. It's, it's probably something we should touch on regularly, especially with them as far as I. Of brand strategy. Anyway, in conclusion, thanks for being here with us today. I apologize for my Portuguese, connections. I strongly recommend that you start your recalibration journey by understanding what your brand, archetypal mix. You can do this through our free archetype alignment quiz. The link is in the description. There's also plenty of resources, connections, waiting for you in our BAM FAM community space. So be sure to jump in on the conversation. Finally, if you find yourself in need of guidance with your brand alignment, we have our BAM Academy and frameworks to help you with that. I would start with the BIG BAM process. This is the brand strategy framework we've helped thousands of clients through. Check out our website for the December virtual group dates and registration links. There's also a self-guided option for those who prefer to go at their own pace. If you'd like to be, be a guest, at BAM Cast, you can email clarity@bamalign.com with the subject line. I would like to be a guest on BAM Cast.

Joel Kelly - normal: 19:48

Yeah. So thanks again for listening and this sounds like something you're stuck on. Give us a shout. Our self-guided course is now available for business owners who have hit a plateau and just need to get their new ideas through all that noise. I mean, and there's a lot more to it. And if you're just stuck in general and just from having a business, starting a business and really, or and plateaued and haven't pushed past those three to five years, and you're kind of stuck in that growth and scalability, then the Big BAM process is directly for you, and I would suggest honestly that you probably go through the group guided, but if you have the discipline, then definitely go at the self pace if you really need that one on one. We do have those options as well. Thanks for listening

André Gagiano: 20:33

Thanks, Joel. Yep. All right. Until

Joel Kelly - normal: 20:35

next time.